Budget Charts a New Course for NASA

America needs to get it's priorities straight. It needs to stop wasting enormous amounts of energy and money on things that are of little benefit to anyone, like not wasting energy heating your homes when they can be insulated better etc. etc. If Americans did this then missions to the moon and Mars could be easily afforded. Get it right America!

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NASA is DEAD

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At last, NASA can now now focus its concentration  on climate theology.

I see a lot of sarcastic remarks, and no agency deserves it better than NASA.
Like most Federal agencies it has lacked focus, become a jobs program, and has not accomplished what its job was.
Namely, to get us into space cheaply and safely....
But I see this as a positive change. Maybe a ray of hope.
  They may get their priorities straight and push the envelope of materials and technology we have today to achieve its mandate.
  Which will benefit us all in the long run.

How 'bout we just sit on our asses in our own backyards while the rest of the world takes over in all technological areas?  Let's whine and cry about all the inequities and inequalities promulgated by the BAD AMERICANS and spend our money helping those who won't help themselves?  How 'bout we feel sorry for all those other countries who should have a chance to beat us in the Space Race (because that is exactly what it is).  How 'bout we spend large sums of money (much more than all the money NASA is budgeted) supporting people who don't work and companies that would have failed otherwise?  How 'bout we spend large sums of money on recreation programs for our children when a very large percentage of them are FAILING the BASICS?  We let kids play sports in school even though they can't pass their classes (a D is NOT passing). How 'bout we spend, oh let's say a TRILLION, dollars to support banks and lenders who made bad decisions?  How 'bout we "pour" TRILLIONS of dollars into the economy to provide a measley 600,000 jobs when millions more have lost their jobs and more are losing their jobs?.  How 'bout we borrow more money than we have from countries who are not our friends and put our great-great-great-great grandchildren in debt?  Why don't we tax to death the very class that basically drives the economy to support growth in welfare and other give-away programs?  Why don't we support small businesses who can only offer minimum wage jobs instead of industries that employs thousands of highly skilled well paying jobs as well as millions of supporting positions at large, medium, and small businesses?  I am beginning to see a trend in the programs and budget that our esteemed President is proposing and supporting.  It seems that the President and his cronies don't want well educated, well paid citizens but uneducated, underemployed, needy ones that they can control and manage (communism anyone?).

Regardless of all the money they have supposedly wasted, NASA has enriched our lives in more ways than its critics can tell. The moon and Mars missions were priceless. Those Hubble images alone are worth it all. And they did it all with one of the most primitive, dangerous and expensive transportation technologies known to mankind, rocket propulsion. And that there is NASA's biggest problem. No other country is going to surpass the US in space exploration because they are all struggling against the same brick wall.

Rest assured that we are not going to colonize the Moon, let alone the solar system and the star systems beyond with a bunch of clunky rockets. Rocket science may look cool but it’s way overrated. Fortunately for space fans, a breakthrough in our understanding of motion is about to change all that.

A new analysis of the causality of motion leads to the conclusion that we are immersed in energy, lots and lots of it. Normal matter moves in an immense, crystal-like lattice of energetic particles without which neither gravity, nor electromagnetism, nor even motion would be possible. Soon we’ll use this knowledge to build vehicles that can move at enormous speeds and negotiate right angle turns without slowing down and without incurring damage due to inertial effects. Floating sky cities impervious to earthquakes, tsunamis and bad weather, New York to Beijing in minutes, Earth to Mars in hours; that’s the future of energy and travel.

Physics: The Problem With Motion

We all love Asimov’s dream of a galactic empire. We want to colonize the entire solar system and many other star systems beyond. Going back to the Moon using our current rocket propulsion technology is not the way to do it. What would be the point of that? Is the moon made of unobtainium? No it's not. What NASA should be doing is spending a boatload of money on developing new and revolutionary space propulsion technologies. Even the space station is a complete waste of time and money from humanity’s point of view, the few who are benefiting from it notwithstanding.

We need a new foundational science of motion and propulsion. The current Newtonian paradigm is just not cutting it. It’s time for you rocket scientists to retire and give new brains with revolutionary ideas a turn at the wheel.

PS. Don't say nobody told you because I just did. :-)

Landing two geologist-astronauts on a near-earth asteroid should be at the top of the White House space agenda, as recommended by David Kagan, US aerospace engineer and author of the book Sunstroke. I agree with Kagan: too many large space rocks are whizzing closer and closer to Earth, and top science panels state that it's now time to determine the best way to divert them--before it's too late. Kagan advises that NASA in conjunction with private industry mount a crewed- mission to the nearest one to accurately determine the precise composition of these dangerous bodies to prevent an extinction level event on Earth (or the loss of a major population center). Lockheed-Martin has already built and successfully launched their Ares heavy-lift rocket--the successor to the fabulous Saturn V booster that sent Apollo astronauts to the Moon--and has developed a viable flight plan to safely carry out a crewed- mission to a nearby large space rock.

Remember, that back in 1967 a panel of science experts urgently recommended that NASA put astronauts on a near-Earth asteroid for the same reasons using the giant Saturn V Moon rocket. Today, however, it will be far cheaper to "land" two astronauts on an asteroid using Lockheed-Martin's plan to "jet-pack" the crew to the asteroidal surface and back to their Command Module, without needing a landing vehicle akin to the Apollo lunar descent/ascent module.  Such a mission would have a big pay-back return by safeguarding our civilization, therefore being infinitely more important than maintaining the ISS. The hands-on science results would be far more valuable and comprehensive than data return from unmanned probes.

Here's a simple question:
Why do we need NASA?
Here's the best answer I could come up with:

To find evidence of life on other planets.

Finding life on other planets may not cause the world's economy to grow, but I bet you that things would chance on Earth if we knew about life on other planets.

It won't help to feed, cloth, or house people in poverty, but it could re-excite the feeling of a new frontier.

I know that my life would change if we found life on other planets. For example, I would probably spend a lot more more times reading journal articles from the astronomy community, feeling excited about what it would take to contact other lifeforms (intelligent or not.)

So, with that aside, how do we quantify the impact that NASA has had on our lives? How do we quantify the effect of seeing a picture of the Earth from the Moon? Or of a picture of the Martian surface?

I think that there is a tangible benefit to NASA, but I'm not sure how to quantify it.

I think it has to do with engendering a sense of community. The question is: could there be a return on investment from investing in NASA?

Sure, there's the argument that NASA creates great technology, but I don't buy that argument because if the goal is a certain technology, then it's always better to invest directly in the technology rather than in some round-about sort of way.

Ultimately, I think that we have to invest in NASA because the exploration for new forms of life seems to build a sense of community that can't be done by any religion, any ideology, or any political party.

There's something to be said about pointing the mirror back on one's self and seeing things anew for the first time. As a society, I think that we have to find ways of pointing the mirror back on ourselves. Landing on the moon, exploring other planets, and hopefully finding other forms of life should make us a more adaptive, self-reflective society, i.e. better able to cope with the uncertainty nature throws at us every day.

Critical new technologies are forced to fail and will never happen if congress and the President don't realize that developing game changing technologies with high risk, will always be over budget and behind schedule and can only be done by NASA.  The real question to ask, is what technologies are worth going the extra mile for? The last time NASA made an attempt a for critical new technologies the Single Stage to Orbit program (SSTO) with the X-33, congress killed it. The technologies in the X-33 like the aerospike engine, composite cryogenic fuel tanks, metallic thermal protection system,  autonomous (unmanned) flight control, and lifting body had the potential to at least, half the per pound cost to get into orbit. That's something worth going over budget for. Today the X-33 sits un-finished and un-tested in storage being harvested for parts. Parts sent to the next canceled project.



       The Obama administration’s plan is a mistake.   If we are to end the Space Shuttle program the United States government must have access to space independent of private industry. We need at least the Ares I to have human access to space and Ares V as heavy lifter from any extended activities in Earth orbit and beyond.   Killing the Constellation program that we spent 9 billion dollars on and will cost 2.5 billion to cancel is short sited and wasteful.  Its not the time for NASA to invest in unproven and higher risk “game changing” technologies or startup aerospace companies.  The Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program is doing well at its current budget.   Should we hand money to SpaceX,  which has no man-rated experience for greater risk than NASA technology?   Our space goals shouldn’t be pawned off to get less value for our money  and decreased safety. 



       There is a very strong strategic justification for Ares I and Ares V.   In the near future we are looking at four new members to the human space flight community.   China, the EU, Japan, and India.  If NASA were absent, the US government would lose the expertise to assist and influence allies and understand where our adversaries intension's lie (peaceful exploration or weapons).    We need a man-rated civilian space agency that is independent from the pentagon and the president and reports to Congress without reservations.  Currently NASA is  the world authority on space and space technology.  How can The United States give away this leadership edge when the price to regain it would be astronomically costly and quite possibly impossible to catch up in a time of crisis?       

            

       NASA should promote the private/commercial sectors ambitions to send people into space but should not be out of the rocket building business for safety and to protect the space faring public, when the private sector has a catastrophic failure. Similar to the U.S. Coast Guard NASA must have the ability to rescue stranded passengers from private space stations or space hotels.  If commercial launches are suspended due to an accident or safety issue NASA must act. A second safety issue is the regulation of man rated rockets.  With no NASA rocket program, safety and proper regulation cannot be ensured because there will lack of expertise, facilities and R&D infrastructure to know what the right guidelines are.  This is the most complex and risky technology in the world the private sector can't do it alone.  No company without government money/resources assistance has ventured into space alone.

Frankly, I'm glad Constilation died. It was just not creative enough. Hey everybody, let's get excited about Apollo II! Let's get into the way back machine and travel to 40 years ago! yea, no... When NASA first began to tout the new program it seemed incredibly uninspired. It's dull, it's been done before. Good riddince to bad garbage.
Let's talk about the future! Things that are on the drawing board are much more inovative and the cost to orbit are much much lower. The hurdle for all of this is of course the cost to orbit.$10,000 per pound to orbit is just too much. Can I imagine U.S. astronauts flying Virgin Galactic? That's just stupid, I mean really stupid. It's not going to happen stupid. Although it is a WAY cheaper cost to orbit. It's $600,000 per launch! That is a lot of trips to orbit for the cost of a single shuttle launch. It is a beggining all be it a suborbital beggining.
I believe once we do have a lower cost to orbit then we will still have a lot of problems maintaining our place in space let alone traveling to the moon/mars. I mean once you are in space, do you think it's prodent to carry two years worth of MREs to mars? I think the best way to foster the technologies needed to travel outside of earth's orbit is by fostering our education system today. I mean I know that my pre-college education was horrible. We need inspiration and we need to foster our children's intrests. That is what NASA was good at for so long was inspiring us.
Today however, I think as an american we need to do some soul searching. Frankly, I'm glad that China, India and others are beggining to go to space. I don't see it as a space race per se. It's more of a wake up call. China is still going things that look like Gemini. Japan is using atimated craft to supply the ISS. Where is the space race there? The U.S. still has plenty of time to inovate ourselves into a paradigm changer.
Things to get excited about near-term are nano-tubes, water reclemation, and more powerful lasers. Those things are things that will bring down the cost of venturing into space and staying there. I say don't give the money to private enterprise, give it to the learning instituions. When has a military flight program ever gone on schedule or budget? If you want more inovation, let today's children and young adults have a chance to let their ideas flurish.

What is wrong with Orion?Scrap all those effete NASA cardboard "space craft" and send 1600 tons of payload into space in one fell swoop.
Easy.